1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a refrigerator, and more particularly, to an ice transfer device for a refrigerator, which can transfer ice made in an ice maker to a dispenser in the refrigerator, and a control circuit of the ice transfer device.
2. Description of the Related Art
A conventional ice transfer device for a refrigerator will be described with reference to the accompanying drawings.
FIG. 1 shows a refrigerator with a conventional ice transfer device, and FIG. 2 is an enlarged view of the ice transfer device shown in FIG. 1.
As shown in these figures, a refrigerator body 1 is provided with a freezing chamber 3 that stores foodstuffs therein and is selectively opened or closed by a door 5. Further, a dispenser 7 is provided at a side of a front face of the door 5, and an ice maker 10 is installed at an upper portion of the freezing chamber 3.
As shown in FIG. 2, an ice-making part 11 for making ice i is provided at an upper portion of the ice maker 10. A storage container 13 for storing the ice i, which has been made by the ice-making part 11, is installed at a lower portion of the ice maker 10 that is below the ice-making part 11.
Meanwhile, a transfer member 15 for pushing stored ice i toward the front of the ice maker 10 is provided within the storage container 13. The transfer member 15 is formed helically and rotated by a motor 17 installed at the rear of the storage container 13. At this time, the motor 17 is arranged such that a motor shaft 17′ is directed to the front of the ice maker 10. An AC shading motor is used as the motor 17.
A gearbox 19 is also provided between the transfer member 15 and the motor 17. The gearbox 19 comprises a plurality of gears to function to transmit increased driving torque to the transfer member 15 while reducing the driving speed of the motor 17. The gearbox 19 has a driving shaft 19′ that is directed to the front of the ice maker 10 in the same manner as the motor shaft 17′. The gearbox 19 is connected to the transfer member 15 and the motor 17 by the driving shaft 19′ and the motor shaft 17′, respectively.
An ice-crushing member 21 is provided at a front end of the transfer member 15. The ice-crushing member 21 is to crush the ice i that is transferred to the front of the ice maker 10 by the transfer member 15. A delivery part 23 for delivering crushed ice i to the outside through the dispenser 7 is provided below the ice-crushing member 21.
However, the conventional ice transfer device for the refrigerator constructed as above has the following problems.
As described above, the motor 17 is conventionally installed at the rear of the storage container 13. Thus, there is a need for a space for the installation of the motor 17, which corresponds to the size of the motor 17, at the rear of the storage container 13. Since such a space is outside the storage container 13, it becomes a dead space in which ice i as well as foodstuffs cannot be stored. That is, the conventional ice transfer device has a disadvantage in that the space cannot be efficiently used.
Further, the conventional ice transfer device for the refrigerator employs an AC shading motor. The AC shading motor has problems in that the motor has heavy weight due to a shading coil thereof and is also difficult to output high power.
Furthermore, since the shading motor can rotate only in a forward direction but not rotate in a reverse direction in nature, the shading motor is difficult to operate if foreign substances and moisture are frozen over on the transfer member 15, the ice-crushing member 21 and the like due to low temperature. In such a case, the frozen foreign material and moisture should be melted after the operation of the refrigerator is stopped. With the use of a shading motor with higher power to solve the problem, the shading motor can be operated even though the freezing occurs to a certain extent. However, there are other problems in this case in that the thickness of a core of the shading motor increases and thus the overall size of the motor increases, electric power consumption increases, and production costs also increases.